Author Vincent Lam wins the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize

Canada's Premiere prize for Fiction names a Winner

incent Lam has been named the 2006 winner of The Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s premier literary prize for fiction, for his novel Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, published by Doubleday Canada. The announcement was made at a gala dinner and award ceremony that drew more than 450 members of the publishing, media and arts communities. Hosted by Justin Trudeau, The Scotiabank Giller Prize was broadcast across Canada in primetime at 10 p.m. ET on CTV and, for the first time, live around the world on The CTV Broadband Network at 9 p.m. ET at CTV.ca. The telecast will air again tomorrow, Wednesday, Nov. 8 at 10 a.m. ET and Saturday, Nov. 11 at 4 p.m. ET on CTV (check local listings), as well as on-demand on The CTV Broadband Network at CTV.ca.

The largest annual prize for fiction in the country, The Scotiabank Giller Prize awards $40,000 each year to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $2,500 to each of the finalists. A shortlist of five authors and their books was announced on October 3, 2006. Those finalists were:

Rawi Hage for his novel De Niro’s Game, published by House of Anansi Press

Vincent Lam for his short story collection, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, published by Doubleday Canada

Pascale Quiviger for her novel The Perfect Circle, translation by Sheila Fischman, published by Cormorant Books

Gaétan Soucy for his novel The Immaculate Conception, translation by Lazer Lederhendler, published by House of Anansi Press

Carol Windley for her short story collection, Home Schooling, published by Cormorant Books

Selected by an esteemed jury panel comprised of The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson and distinguished Canadian authors Alice Munro and Michael Winter, the five finalists were chosen from 101 books submitted for consideration by 36 publishing houses from every region of the country.

Of the winning book, the jury remarked: “This series of inter-linked stories is a profound and meaningful glimpse into a world which seems on the surface to be purely medical, but leads us into the metaphorical. The characters and the situations are unexpectedly bound together and make us, as readers, not just witnesses to, but participants in, the world that has been created for us.”

Vincent Lam was born in London, Ontario and grew up in Ottawa. His family is from the expatriate Chinese community of Vietnam. Vincent Lam is a doctor who did his medical training in Toronto and is an emergency physician who also does international evacuation work. His non-fiction writing has appeared in The Globe and Mail, the National Post and the University of Toronto Medical Journal. Lam’s first novel will be published by Doubleday in 2007. He and his wife live in Toronto.

During tonight’s award ceremony, a roster of celebrity presenters – Margaret Atwood, Wendy Crewson, Sophie Gregoire, Eric Peterson, Albert Schultz and Janet Wright – read the jury remarks, introduced video profiles of the short-listed authors, and presented each of them with a leather bound copy of their book.

2006 marks the second year of the partnership between The Giller Prize and Scotiabank. On September 22, 2005, Jack Rabinovitch and Rick Waugh, President and CEO of Scotiabank announced that the bank would become the first ever co-sponsor of Canada’s richest literary award for fiction. Under the new agreement, the prize became known as The Scotiabank Giller Prize. The purse doubled, growing to Cdn $50,000 with $40,000 going to the winner, and $2,500 being given to each of the four finalists. Beginning last year, CTV became the exclusive broadcast partner for The Scotiabank Giller Prize.